Dear Mohan, certainly it is. At my hospital (National Pediatrics at Buenos Aires), domestic violence turns to be one of the main and mayor pathologies we´re dealing with nowadays. From our duty at hospital we can only work on the child's protection and be expert witnesses at Court. As a public health issue, I think that there's no unique answer, as is a multifactorial issue: education, cultural beliefs, social desintegration, economic problems, drug and alcohol abuse, early pregnancy, absence of the State all into a frame of social violence should be addressed from different and comlementary perspectives. Law and justice system surely have a main role, but is not enough as is not enough what we can do from hospital, as we just take part on the consequences, but we cannot work on the prevention. What we can see is not only that the number of violent cases has arisen but also the kind of violence in itself is even more harsh.

Cheers. Susie.

I feel it is a largely underresearched area....

Of course .........

Yes, of course, as it is still in the "developed" countries.  I'm not sure if your question is meant to suggest that the problem of DV is no longer a problem in developed countries or if DV can ever NOT be a problem anywhere.  Like assault, murder, or other violent crimes, I really doubt these can be eradicated anywhere.  History shows us that much.

Dear Researcher,

Thanks to respond. It is a universal phenomenon, but the factors may somewhat different in developing countries.

Dear Mohan, it definitely is and it is an unappreciated pathology that generates others and a number of challenges and demands on the public health system including the need for counselling of different types, prevention, security and records management to preserve the privacy of women and children who have to literally hide away for their physical and mental security. I am often now very sure how adapted clinical medicine and the structures it generates in the public health system are adapted to these realities or how much has been done to make that adaptation possible. Clearly though business as usual will not work.

I dont know much about the phemonen in Brazil where I live and work (simply due to the issue of research and focus) but I do recall some recent public debates on  sexual violence (rape) including the rigorous efforts against shaming the victim as well as the results of a survey and some questions about if a womens dress or other actions can contribute? All to say, there is still some work to be done in Brazil as everywhere. It never just stops or begins at the physical violence has been my experience.

In my own country Barbados and in the Caribbean, I remember the cases of severe physical violence including a dismemberment  even though relatively rare they have happened. And at one period which I now cant recall exactly it seemed we had a spate of attacks which raised a lot of concern and raised questions about why viloence was deemed to be an acceptable response? We have also had the usual case of  violence post break-up or separation, leaving a child parentless.  I think even with those and the debates, a lot goes unreported.  The factors can and do differ - there are some deepseated cultural pathologies - unspoken but powerful - that we have to unearth.

There is interesting work on the issue particularly with me that I find fascinating. Brazil is a place where interesting work has been done particularly by Promundo including innovative approaches. I remember reading about some of their work years ago and it made an impact. They sought to understand and they had men working with men. Here is their website:  www.promundo.org.br/en/

and some work directly related to your question: http://www.promundo.org.br/en/news/promundo-and-usaid-partner-to-pilot-an-online-course-to-train-health-care-workers-in-preventing-gender-based-violence-in-brazil/.

They also have survey mostly focused on men, at the international level, which may be useful : http://www.promundo.org.br/en/activities/activities-posts/international-men-and-gender-equality-survey-images-3/.

And it seems the Men Engage global Symposium will be in Delhi the week after next: http://menengage.org/.

Mohan, Just to clarify, domestic violence here refers to spousal or intimate partner violence OR are you including elder abuse, child maltreatment,?  These are often used differently by researchers and authors and even have different legal definitions (here in USA). And also, which specific factors do you think are different?

Thank you.

Good point Mary-Helen. I assumed the former but a good question indeed.

This certainly a point. In Argentina when talking about domestic violence it refers to women, children and elder who belong to that famlily, suffering from violence inside it by a familiar perpetrator. Child abuse and maltreatment, and elder abuse and maltreatment are a specific type of domestic violence when it happens inside families. They are treated as separate phenomenom when the perpetrator is an outsider or unrelated to family. But for us, between nearly 80 % (or more) in cases of a child, and around 90% -or more- in cases of women, the perpetrator is familiar to the victim.

It is encouraging for me. So many questions are raised by our colleague researchers on this serious topic. There are a lot of dimensions of this problem, hence, Your point is valid.Everyone must clearly know, which group of population we are using term  domestic violence, mostly in our scenario this violence is correlated   with a female members of the family. As I know, this term is not related to child and elderly population..Sometime term abuse is used for these vulnerable groups

domestic violence (DV) is not the problem specifically of developing countries.developed countries face it too.  it is a problem of ignorance and illiteracy. through education and better upbringing of children, this can be minimized. DV is not a serious concern, providing justice and equality in society should be serious concerns. DV will be minimized automatically.